USING A SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT FOR DYNAMIC TOLL ANALYSIS

摘要

The Capital Beltway HOT Lanes will be a 14 mile subset of the Washington, D.C. region?sCapital Beltway (Interstate 495) upon completion in December 2012. Buses, carpools (HOV-3+), motorcycles and emergency vehicles will be able to access the Capital Beltway HOT lanesfor free while drivers with fewer than three occupants must pay a toll to use the HOT lanes.Upon opening, they will be among the most advanced variably priced toll lanes in the world. Adynamic toll algorithm (DTA) will be responsible for making adjustments to the toll prices atregular intervals based on measured traffic density. An effective means to examine, develop andtest the toll system capabilities prior to implementation was considered essential.A very limited number of real-world algorithms currently exist for dynamic pricing on toll roads,and none was currently available in any existing simulation environment capable of accuratelyreflecting the fully dynamic nature of the Beltway?s HOT Lanes toll system. After evaluatingvarious options, the eventual selection of Caliper Corporation?s TransModeler was made as thepackage of choice. A new and distinctive micro-simulation traffic environment was createdbased on the MnPass algorithm and used in the dynamic tolling analysis for the project. Thesimulation analysis was undertaken in the system procurement phase of the project to allow forintegrated testing activities concurrent with the design and development process, which willyield significant positive outcomes for the project.